Re: A scientific theory against God and morality


nando_ronteltap@xxxxxxxxx kirjoitti:

neverbetter wrote:
nando_ronteltap@xxxxxxxxx kirjoitti:

The point of natural selection theory should be to explain the forms of
organisms. You can't do that when you start the logic with being better
at reproduction than another. You have to start the logic with
preservation of form through reproduction.

This makes no sense to me. Forms of organisms ARE preserved through
reproduction. If organism A is better at reproduction than organism B,
then the form of A is more likely to be preserved through reproduction.
It doesn't matter which sentence you start with, you are describing
natural selection anyhow.

Gee, that's being obtuse. One can see the formulations are different.

It doesn't mean they're not both part of what happens in natural
selection. If you reproduce, some of your genes are preserved in the
next generation. If you reproduce more than your neighbour, your genes
are preserved more than your neighbour's and stand a greater chance to
become wide-spread in the population. They are not alternative and
mutually exclusive theory formulations; they're both part of what we
mean by natural selection. Some reproduce a little, some reproduce a
lot, some don't reproduce, and this has an effect on the frequency of
their genes in the future generations.

For example in the preservation logic of natural selection species that
are becoming extinct can be said to be selected against. In the
reproducing better as another logic natural selection generally doesn't
apply to species going extinct, because no one is better as another
they all fail.

They only all fail in the last generation, when the last living member
of a species dies. Up until then, somebody has to have to reproduced
since the species lasted so far. If there are several individuals
alive, some of them are almost always going to have more descendants
than others and thus there is differential reproductive success, even
if the species is in the process of going extinct. The success may be
very pitiful, but it's a relative term anyway. Also, there may be
several competing species in the same niche and you may compare
reproductive success among them. Presumably the species that aren't
going extinct reproduce better than the one that is.

One can see that the Darwinist formulation pits the one against the
other in struggle where the superior wins out. But no such struggle
for reproduction exists, because no such goal of reproduction exists.

Right. Trees don't deliberately set out to beat the next tree in the
"produce more seeds"-struggle. But nobody is claiming anything like
that. Even if natural selection is spoken of in terms of winning the
competition to reproduce, this is not what is meant. It's a metaphor.

So for as far as evolution goes, in stead of talking ideologically
about differential reproductive "success", we should be talking
neutrally about a differential "rate" of reproduction.

Occasionally we do. It means the same thing, though. Those who have
more reproductive success have a higher rate of reproduction. Those who
beget more heirs get a greater number of children. The wording doesn't
change anything in the grand scheme of things.

We should
recognize that the basic logic is not to be better as another at
reproduction, but the basic logic is the preservation of form through
reproduction. The form of an organism doesn't make sense in terms of
being better as another, the form basicly makes sense in relation to
the environment.

Considering that the environment has a limited amount of resources
which the organisms compete about it all ties together. Bacteria don't
have to set out to compete and be better reproducers than other
bacteria, but nevertheless, if there are several, some of them are
better reproducers. Darwin tells us that the forms which make the most
sense in relation to the environment (i. e. are the best adapted) have
a greater likelihood to survive long enough to reproduce (have better
reproductive success, higher reproductive rate, get more descendants,
or whatever way you want to phrase it) and thus their form is more
likely to be preserved. It's all interdependent and you get only a
partial understanding if you remove a piece for ideological reasons.

.

Relevant Pages

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